Therapists: Did they help you or ruin your life? - Page 2

[RachelGS]

Originally Posted by meowee

If you're one of the nice shrinks out there, no need to get defensive.

I'm not defensive. I'm angry-- both that you were willing to use your experiences to write off an entire profession AND that you have been treated so poorly as to make you think that most psychologists are crazy.

[mother_sunshine]

Thank you all for your responses (and thanks Brianna and Joan for your kind words). Every post is helpful to me, even the ones that offend others. I really do appreciate all openness and honesty here, to help give me perspective and look at all possible angles.

I don't take divorce lightly. It's not something that I want for my dd especially because I know how it feels to not have your Mom and Dad love each other and in the same home. So I want to do everything I can to avoid it. My therapist is telling me that studies have shown that children of divorced happy parents are better off than children of married parents who are not happy. This thought has opened a window for me and my head is now spinning with confusion and conflict as to what would be right for dd.

There is love there. There is just a lot of built-up resentment on both sides, it makes the love hard to get to.

Thanks again for all your help. I appreciate all your openness and honesty.

[stirringleaf]

i agree with A&A about 'meant to be" kinds of thinking. i think thats a dangerous line of thinking because we are not omniscient and its impossible to tell with complete objectivity, WHAT we are "suposed" to be doing. that said, i think intuition is important and all. but also realise alot of the old school feminists have the thought that marriage is generally opressive and for women to be independant they should get out. it might be true in some instances, esp. if there is abuse, but if its just alot of not getting along and bickering and stuff, that can be worked on and fixed if both partners want to. i have thought my husband was the wrong person for me many many times. the first year of my marriage was me thinking that! so i know the feeling. but i feel truly liberated now that i have figured out a way to be independant and happy while maintaing a repectful marriage...i am not trying to be cheesy or put down your experience, it is really what mine was. it has taken a couple years to get to this place though and we are still working on it.
i had to realise that DH cant be my main source of happiness, and now i do more art and write again and do alot of htings that i stopped doing when we were first married and had a baby, and my life has been transformed.

as far as shrinks, they have been really really helpful to me, but i have also had soe mediocre ones i quit going to cuz they jsut seemed sort of non helpful, but not any that rearranged my whole view of my life...

[stirringleaf]

i think we cross posted . i just read your post. and i wanted to say that this:

She is telling me that studies have shown that children of divorced happy parents are better off than children of married parents who are not happy. This thought has opened a window for me and my head is now spinning with confusion and conflict as to what would be right for dd.

raises a red flag in my mind! she is essentailly influencing you to consider divorce by telling you those facts! maybe thats true for some kids, for some families, but i find that my marriage is so strong now that we have gone through hell and come back! we are much stronger for it and i am happy we can give that to our son ( so far) ...just more of my 2 cents. i am sorry you are going through this but i think she might be crossing an ethical line. who says you would be a happy divorced couple/ the issues wont just disappear if you live in separate houses. maybe you do need to be divorced, i dont want to influence you either! but just offering another side of that

[tinybutterfly]

[MsMoMpls]

I am a therapist and I am well aware there are many in my field who came here rather than face their own demons. Mostly I find many of them nice to talk to but not really very effective. I of course am the exception... ok- that makes me the narcisistic one, right? Ok-IMHO, many individual therapists have no training in Marriage and Family Therapy (which is my masters degree) and should refrain from relationship work, including seeing both people as they often makes things worse. I think years of focusing on individual happiness has led to increases in divorce and much of what this group would call inadequate (mainstream) parenting. Marriage and kids require sacrifices, but not your soul. Research (don't you love how easy it is to throw that around) also shows that people are about as happy as they know how to be. This means, for most people 2 years after a happy event, or 2 years after an enormously stressful time, we go back to our own baseline of happiness. So I don't encourage divorce as a solution for much. Find out how your partner interferes with you taking care of your own happiness, or I fear, like most people, you will just find yourself in the same boat 5 years down the line. I don't think divorce is great for kids, but it won't maim them for life. But most of us learn our greatest lessons by fighting through the challenges in our life and boy doens't marriage offer lots of those.

Good luck and it was so brave of you to share all this. It is certainly a tough subject for many.

[mandib50]

i am not a therapist, i'm sorry that some have had such horrific experiences with them. sadly though, that does not occur just with therapists but with people of all professions.

mother_sunshine, you need to listen to your inner voice. my concern is that you are in a relationship with a man that is not inspiring or supporting you, he is not behaving in a loving way if he is putting you down. and regardless of any study, i think that it is obvious that if you stay in a relationship where your self-worth is determined by someone else, you are modelling the acceptability of that to your children, both in how your daughter will relate to herself and modelling what a future relationship will be for her. i just think that in a relationship you deserve to have a kind of relationship that helps you shine, that brings out the best in you.

that being said, i have been through something similar and really didn't realize until our marriage ended and i went through some counselling and self-growth. i don't want to sound unsupportive or uncaring by any means, i think that in relationships we need to take responsibility and claim ownership of what is going on and if your husband is putting you down and telling you that you are not good enough, then gratefully you do have the power to stop that and tell him enough is enough. please stop choosing to accept less than what you deserve.

just my 2 cents, hang in there!!
mandi

[Mom4tot]

Michelle~ long before I saw your picture, I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I had met from reading your posts. You have so much kindness, openess and love, not only for your dd, but for life itself. I am sorry you ever felt otherwise. You have taken on the challenge of hsing with such trust and a postive outlook. I admire you.

[babybugmama]

Okay, I've been mulling it over and reading what Joan said () and I realize that perhaps I am being defensive. (thank you Joan) I think it stems from feeling lately that I almost have to be ashamed to say I'm a therapist because of the reactions I get. So rarely is it a positive reaction. I could go on, but that's not the point.

Michelle I'm sorry. In reacting I missed the core of what you were communicating. That you are in pain and confusion. I was at a running store yesterday and asking about some difficulties I was having with my shoes. The guys comment was, "always remember you are an experiment of one." (He was referring to me talking about some research out there). I guess that would be what I would say in your shoes too. The research is out there, but who's to say what applies to you. Find what your path is... I like what Joan said about it being messy in the middle.

Something to consider. Perhaps someone other than your individual therapist would be better for a marriage therapist? I find it hard to imagine that despite your dh seeing her now that he won't think of her as "your therapist," and that may make progress difficult. Not to mention it may be impeding your progress now? I say this as a *friend* not a therapist, just my thoughts if I were in your place.

I admire you for beginning this difficult and scary journey. Again, I'm sorry I missed the ultimate message.

[A&A]

So, on the "never good enough for him" issue, does he actually say this? Let me give you an example. When I wear a new outfit or cut my hair, I expect dh to say I look GREAT! And sometimes he won't even notice the new outfit or haircut. So, *I* start feeling insecure and perhaps not "good enough." But dh never actually called me ugly or fat or anything.

Does your dh actually TELL you that you're not good enough?

What I've read about children and divorce is:

If there is a lot of fighting, yelling, screaming, slamming doors, etc., then yes, kids will probably be better off with divorced parents who don't scream and yell.

BUT.........if the parents are just QUIETLY unhappy, and there is very little yelling, screaming, etc. going on, then the kids won't have seen a divorce coming and it will hit them like a ton of bricks. So, my point is, you could be unhappily married and still have kids who are very, very happy with their family arrangement.

And I've seen 17 year-olds who are absolutely devastated by their parents' divorce; I don't think being older necessarily makes a divorce easier on kids.

There was a point in my marriage where I was going to leave my dh........because I was becoming an absolute shell of a woman and didn't want to have my daughter see that kind of example. But, things are better now and we are working on our marriage. So, I can empathize with you either way on this.

Feel free to PM me, as well.

[A&A]

PS. Regarding therapists..........I think SOME therapists are drawn to psychology because of their own issues.

My friend's dh was a respected psychiatrist who suffered from depression and eventually killed himself. My friend said that her dh could really empathize with his depressed patients.

[purplegirl]

Originally Posted by meowee

Well, since you opened up the can of worms, I'll say that in my extensive experience with the psychiatric system, most psychiatrists and psychologists are pathological narcissists. Yes, this is a sweeping statement, but I feel I've had ample enough experience to say it. And it's JMO, after all.

I would NEVER take life changing advice from a shrink. Most of them have very screwed up lives and serious troubles of their own. Many of them are in it for the money and "PLAYING GOD." Most have egos the size of North America.

There ARE nice shrinks out there but they are few and far between. Don't end your marriage until you've detoxed from this "elder and wise" therapist for a good long time. this is your decision, you don't owe her diddly squat.

I am a therapist too and take offense at your sweeping generalization. My life is not screwed up but I am a human being who struggles with issues similiar to many clients. However, I deal with my issues either through personal therapy or supervision so that they don't interfere with my treatment of clients. If I am unable to do this, I would terminate with the client in his/her best interest. Most ethical therapists would do the same. As far as being money hungry. What a joke! What I have to go through to get paid is unbelievable. I also see a number of clients pro bono. Trust me, I will never get rich in this profession and certainly didn't have that as a motivation when I chose this career.
ugh!

[MamaAllNatural]

Originally Posted by Mom4tot

Michelle~ long before I saw your picture, I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I had met from reading your posts. You have so much kindness, openess and love, not only for your dd, but for life itself. I am sorry you ever felt otherwise. You have taken on the challenge of hsing with such trust and a postive outlook. I admire you.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Michelle, the feeling I'm getting the most here is that you need to let yourself change (or be yourself) in the ways that you are feeling are necessary. When you change, the pattern can't continue. Either dh can choose to change too, or it just simply won't work anymore. So, do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel good and happy and fulfilled.

[Mom4tot]

Originally Posted by MamaAllNatural

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Michelle, the feeling I'm getting the most here is that you need to let yourself change (or be yourself) in the ways that you are feeling are necessary. When you change, the pattern can't continue. Either dh can choose to change too, or it just simply won't work anymore. So, do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel good and happy and fulfilled.

Yes, that is really good advice I read this as taking the focus off of your marriage, and put the energy into loving yourself and your relationship will either improve and be supportive to that, or not...but, you will know what is the right thing to do.

[mother_sunshine]

Thank you all for your replies.

A&A, thanks for the support . He has never said that I am "not good enough" but he has called me fat, inactive, lazy, etc. He withholds affection and "niceness" when I am not in his ideal shape/appearance.

Babybugmama, there was no need to apologize . I understood what you were saying and why. Maybe we should see a marriage therapist who is more neutral. The trouble is that I would only want to see a "free-minded" woman, so I think we would run into the same "problem" of dh feeling ganged up on. We saw a marriage therapist (a nice man) around 10 years ago, and after a half-hour with him he laughed at us and said that we were just fine. He told dh to start spending one full day (and not a surf-related activity) per week with me, which lasted 1 half-day.

Originally Posted by Mom4tot

Michelle~ long before I saw your picture, I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I had met from reading your posts. You have so much kindness, openess and love, not only for your dd, but for life itself. I am sorry you ever felt otherwise. You have taken on the challenge of hsing with such trust and a postive outlook. I admire you.

THANK YOU Joan.

[MamaAllNatural]

Wow, Michelle, that is really intense. I hope this doesn't come across like I don't care about you (because you know I do ) but my growing concern is actually for your daughter. You see how negatively it's affected you in adulthood. Growing up with that kind of pressure could be much more devasting. I'm glad he's in therapy. I think it's ok right now that he's coming home feeling validated. He needs to feel validated and safe with the therapist before he'll be willing to work on the hard parts. It sounds like it could take a while for him to undo these patterns.

I read a really great book not too long ago that I think would be helpful for you right now. I can't quite recall the name. : I'll look it up and get back to you. Something about communication and the language of love. I think this would be a good tool for you in dealing with him while he's getting the help he needs.

I'm so sorry to hear about this.


*ETA: OK, I remember the name of the book. It's Non Violent Communication, though I can't recall the author - Rosenburg maybe? :

One more edit: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion by, Marshall B. Rosenburg

[captain optimism]

I had a good experience in couple's counseling with my dh before we got married. I would have liked to continue. I have met in social life some of the therapists that meowee describes. It's like anything important, you have to shop and be wary.

You have the ability to know when someone is perceptive and has integrity, so part of the experience of therapy is learning to trust yourself and your perceptions about the therapist and the therapy.

I would not go to the same counselor for individual and for couple's therapy. I think that's just asking for trouble. Your individual therapist has to be on your side. (I know, it's not about sides, etc. But she is YOUR therapist, she signed on to help YOU.) I think it makes sense to see another therapist with your dh. You will have to pay for the time anyway. If you feel uncomfortable, ask your current therapist for a referral.

I learned about Non-Violent Communication here on MDC--we briefly had a discussion group about the book. Here is a link to the NVC website:

http://www.cnvc.org/nvc.htm

[mother_sunshine]

Thanks MamaAllNatural
I have thought about it often (how this all affects dd) and I have thought about how it may be even worse if we were divorced. He would still take part in raising her, but I wouldn't be there to "clean up any damage". I went through this with my Dad, he was always on me about my appearance. If my Mom were there I would think/hope that she would have told him to lay off.
I have always talked to dd about how it is wrong to judge others by the way they look, and how it is wrong for daddy (and her grandmothers, dh's side, this is where he gets it from) to put down others if they are overweight. She knows how shallow it is, and she is very "girl power". I know that it sends a bad message to stay with him though.

I'll look into that book.

[Foobar]

As a non-professional, I can only give you my personal advice. Listen to your heart. How do you think the marriage is affecting your dd now? How will she view herself based on her father's views on you?

I cringe at all your write because it sounds like a very abusive relationship. It isn't physically abusive, but by controlling YOUR body for HIS needs, it is abusive.

What does your heart tell you?

[mother_sunshine]

Thanks for the link captain optimism.